


Dreams, Deconstructed

by Seek_The_Mist



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Family Issues, M/M, The Lynch family is a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 11:27:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7799977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seek_The_Mist/pseuds/Seek_The_Mist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronan gets to explore forgotten memories, but he's not alone in munching through them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <i>"Of all the things he already experienced, with and without the old group, he was still startled to see the small figure in a pyjama skipping down the last steps, barefoot, and hugging something that looked like a vinyl record in his hands. <br/>Recognizing himself as a kid no older than six years old was truly, absolutely, something else."</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Pynchweek – Day 5 – Memory Lane+Catharsis</b>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams, Deconstructed

The entire first floor of the Barns was scrubbed clean: dream-cluttered sorted and stocked away in several boxes currently waiting by the entrance, several carpet hanged outside in the windy late afternoon to air and the floor still drying.

Adam and Ronan were camped on the couch, an island of safety among wet patches and faint detergent smell. The reward for their “make it or break it” cleaning day had been two now-empty bottles of beers, and Ronan absent-mildly looked at the trick of the dark glass reflection on the low coffee table.

The silence was deep and contemplative, Adam chest remarkably confortable under his cheek were they laid one on top of the other to actually fit in the contained space. He could feel Adam’s breath heaving a little and slowing down in the quiet, but he still said nothing and kept stroking his knuckles with one finger, softly.

Falling asleep, together and like this, was not intentional but still happened.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Ronan regained some sense of clearness to an insistent, impossible sound of leaves shaking in the wind.

When he opened his eyes he was still on the couch, in Adam’s arms, but it was dark as the middle of the night.  
He was a dreamer, though, and so, if the sound was not enough, the different smell, the lack of thereof if he did not concentrate to picture it, told him immediately that he was not awake.

He lifted up and looked around and Adam seemed to be conscious as well, sliding in a sitting position.

“Shit, is it so late?” his voice was confused but not sleepy.

“Not really. It’s a dream. Seems like you can’t get enough of me and you followed me around here as well” he plastered a shitface grin on, but he was more than pleased that even dreaming was something that he could share with Adam.

He got up and explored a bit, frowning a bit.

“This is the Barns of when I was a kid” he shared only part of his thoughts, a bit more wary considering what happened the last time Cabeswater paired with his mind to produce such a clear memory.

He stuck closer to him and the both of them wandered around, Adam more curious and exploring than he would probably be if he could even phantom what could hide in Ronan’s dreams, even without demons hunting and leyline surging. 

They ended up stopping in their track pretty early, though, a fast approaching noise of feet down the stairs (not hooves that would suggest that Opal was somehow there as well) sent them covering behind the sliding door of the living room.  
Ronan did his best to convey with just a look that he had no idea of what was happening and usually the only people that populated his dreams were sort-of requested by him or a known recurring presence. 

Of all the things he already experienced, with and without the old group, he was still startled to see the small figure in a pyjama skipping down the last steps, barefoot, and hugging something that looked like a vinyl record in his hands.   
Recognizing himself as a kid no older than six years old was truly, absolutely, something else.

Adam eyebrows shoot up. “What the fuck?”, his voice was barely more than a whisper.

Following his question, they both became suddenly aware of ushered but urgent voices further down the hallway, closer to the entrance.

“Dad is there” he murmured to Adam, and if both of them where absolutely not alert before, they were now.

His stomach clenched in longing and a weird sort anxiety.   
His father was not alone; the door was open and looming man on the other side was tall and broad enough to almost fill the frame completely. The light on the porch shed a threating light on him and the unmistakable outline of an automatic gun in his hand.

“You’re going to provide the stuff, Lynch, and you’re going to provide it today, or I will burn this damn place to the ground, with you inside. Your choice” the stranger’s voice was gravelling and deadly, absolutely serious. He was not angry, or out of control. Ronan was immediately aware that this threat would have a follow-up without a bat of an eye.

“Easy, Warmick, I told you already that everything will be safely shipped tomorrow” the conciliatory tone sidelined with an encouragement to get slapped right in the face. 

Ronan was too familiar with it to not recognize the black and white behind it; a quick glance to Adam’s face made his own grasp evident, not only of the Lynch brand of assholeness, but also a sort of strategic consideration of the scene.

They both froze, though, Adam’s hand grasping his arm urgently, when six-years-old Ronan stopped watching with them and made his move, one step and than another towards his father, their guest. 

Dangerously, oh-so dangerously.

The last year made them alert enough that they immediately recognize the subtle shift of the stranger’s face. He did grasp that someone, something, was moving in the dark.

Terror dawned upon them and they both made to move and block the tragedy before it happened, but the ineffable logic of every dream – of every nightmare – made the air heavy and the space shifting, every purpose fruitless like they didn’t even tried at all.

Ronan had a spare second to wonder if he was going to watch his young-self die, or something equally terrible, something that would probably qualify as a nightmare for both himself and Adam.   
Adam, beside him, was whispering pleas and demand to Cabeswater, surely the maker of this scenario, but every ear seemed deft tonight.

The second movement in the dark was much swifter, rapid and silent enough that they could have missed if the newcomer did not manage in the deed that had been eluding them.

“Ronan, stop” slightly more than a whisper, he only got it because he was way closer to the two of them in his not-really-hiding spot.

The kid was not so much older but incredibly sure in keeping one hand over kid-Ronan mouth, smooth and silent in dragging him back.

He recognized Declan, of course.

A vague mumbling was the only reply allowed to his younger self while Declan slowly dragged him back upstairs, uttering that he _would explain, come up, it’s not a good moment, you can have all the chocolate in my cereals tomorrow morning_.

In all of this silent commotion, tragedy waiting around the corner, his father was still talking, never batted an eye.   
There was no anxiety in his features and no attempt to conclude the conversation promptly or at least lead it somewhere else.

He kept watching, shell-shocked, long after the two brothers had safely disappeared upstairs. His heart made a complicated twist and twitch in his chest.

He closed his eyes, and he woke up.

  
  


* * *

  
  


He brought nothing back from this dream, but he still didn’t feel like moving. Splayed heavily against Adam chest, between Adam’s legs, he could feel his heart thumping furiously beneath his ear, his body twitching nervously when he woke up as well.

“What the _actual fuck_ ” he breathed, empathically “What hell of a dream was that, Ronan?”

Ronan closed his eyes and opened them back, slowly, still cataloguing the sensation in his chest.

“Not a dream” he murmured, lowly.

Adam, always knowing how to let him be and how and when to push, stayed silent even through his evident desire for an explanation. He was shaken even though nothing had happened, and Ronan was brutally grateful for him and everything he stood for.

“The vinyl – you saw it earlier, from the cabinet here in the living room” he spoke half muttered by his own cheek pressed on Adam’s t-shirt; “It plays only five songs but they are supposed to match with your mood” he explained.

Adam went even stiffer, but one hand lifted delicately to rest on Ronan’s nape, comforting and so evidently _there_.

“I dreamed it for my father, I was really proud of myself” he tried not to sound disdainful, unsuccessfully, and finished spitting out the harsh truth all in one go “I don’t remember that night, but – but I’m pretty fucking sure it happened”.

“Shit” Adam hissed between his clenched jaw, “Was it so common?” he did not really push but he was evidently worried, his touch a bit unsure.

Ronan just lifted one hand and slid it between the couch and Adam’s shoulder, keeping him close, his cheek stroking up while settling. His sigh still came out as a snarl.

“No, not that I remembered” he admitted, without looking up at Adam.

“Probably Declan does?” Adam suggested, delicately, aware of the danger in his own statement. 

Ronan squeezed his eyes, tensing, even while Adam’s hand stroked his shoulder, soothingly. 

“Of course he fucking does. The asshole has a career in dealing with Dad’s shit evidently” he roared, wanting to be angry and instead it was complicated to be anything more than frustrated “The fucker could have killed us all, what the hell”.

He remembered Declan’s story, of the weapon and the hero, and the memory gave a complicated framework to his father’s recklessness and Declan’s perspective.

He loved his father. He missed his father. His father had been a bit of a piece of shit.

There was nothing more to add to the spoken and unspoken realization.  
Ronan didn’t move, a demanding weight on Adam while both of them munched over the fact.  
His hands on his shaved head were the only things anchoring him to sanity.

Only the unmistakable noise of tires on the gravel outside the house reminded him that Declan was actually supposed to come and pick up the boxes, redistribute them among his contacts to make sure that everyone who needed it got some soft of useful thing to keep the last “creditors” at bay.

Ronan lifted up, a weird sensation in his stomach. Adam stayed silent, serious blue eyes staring at him.

“I’m glad you were there with me. To see the memory” Ronan said, apparently non-sequitur, turning around to look back at him.

Adam smile was soft and understanding, “Are you going to talk to him?” he just asked.

Ronan glared again the window, nervous and flippant, but then stood up completely.

Adam’s presence still on the couch was like a thread to keep him up even while the certainty of his life shook and resettled back together. He strode towards the door.

“I am”.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> The Lynch family dynamics are among my favourite of the whole book and I hope I made them justice.
> 
> In my head, this fic also has an Adam analogue which of course is more brutal and hopeless.
> 
> All the feels can be also conveyed on my [Tumblr](http://seekthemist.tumblr.com)!


End file.
